Yasir is a Mechanical Engineer who writes about tech at MUO, covering Windows, Productivity, Security, and the Internet. His interest in autonomous systems keeps him constantly tinkering with both hardware and software.
His tech writing journey began during his junior year of engineering, leading him to Android Police before joining MUO. He focuses on making technology accessible, whether he’s troubleshooting Windows issues, exploring productivity tools, or explaining security risks in plain English. For Yasir, the best way to do this is to actually use the tools and run into the same problems readers face.
When he’s not writing or engineering, you’ll find Yasir watching Impractical Jokers and genuinely laughing at pranks he’s seen a dozen times before.
Whenever a sales target lands in my inbox as a single number, my spreadsheet has no opinion about it. The sheet tells me Sarah Johnson closed $7,550 over four months and took $377.50 at the 5% commission rate. What it will not tell me is what has to change for her to clear $600.
Excel keeps a set of What-If tools built to weigh outcomes before you commit, and Goal Seek is the one I open most. Every formula I write runs from inputs to answer. Planning runs the other way, and only one tool in that menu meets me there.
Goal Seek runs a formula in reverse, and it only needs three fields
What each box wants, and the one rule that decides whether it works
Normal formulas flow one direction, from inputs to a result. Goal Seek holds that result still and works out which input produces it. You can find it under the Data tab inside What-If Analysis, and the whole tool is three fields:
- Set cell takes the formula whose answer you have decided.
- To value takes the number it has to become.
- By changing cell takes the single input you can move.
One rule decides whether it works. The target cell must hold a formula that depends on the changing cell, whether that is a plain multiplication or a reusable commission function you build without touching VBA. The changing cell must hold a plain value, never a formula. Excel refuses if you point either field wrong.
My planning block sits beside the data with Units Sold, an average unit price, Sales Amount as a formula, and Commission as a formula against the rate cell. Running it takes five steps:
- Open the Data tab and select What-If Analysis, then Goal Seek.
- Point Set cell at the formula holding your result.
- Type the figure you need into the To value.
- Point By changing cell at the one input you can move.
- Select OK and read the Goal Seek Status box before accepting anything.
- OS
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Windows, macOS
- Supported Desktop Browsers
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All via web app
- Developer(s)
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Microsoft
- Free trial
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One month
- Price model
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Subscription
- iOS compatible
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Yes
Two questions I put to my sales sheet that formulas alone can’t answer
Same planning block, same target, two completely different plans
Sarah is the rep I test this on, since her numbers are small enough to check by hand. She moved 50 units for $7,550, roughly $151 each. Her commission column is nothing exotic, though there are functions that keep commission math readable across a whole sheet once yours outgrows a single multiplication.
The first question is about effort. I point Set cell at her commission, type 600 into To value, and let Excel change Units Sold. It settles near 79.5 units.
That result is worth more than the arithmetic behind it. Sarah needs about 30 more units, which is a figure I can put in a message. “Sell more” is not. By hand, the same answer means dividing, adjusting, and starting again whenever the average price shifts.
The second question is about the plan itself. Same target, but this time I let Excel change the commission rate instead. It lands near 0.0794, which is 7.9%. Nothing changed except which cell I allowed to move, and the question stopped being about how hard a rep works. It became a question about what the plan pays. That’s how the judgment lies in choosing which cell to change.
Goal Seek writes its answer straight into the changing cell with no undo prompt. Copy the original figure somewhere safe first, or run it on a duplicate sheet.
Goal Seek only moves one cell, and that limits what you can ask it
The walls I hit within a week of relying on it
The first wall is the single input. One changing cell, one target. Asking what combination of units and unit price reaches $600 puts two unknowns in play, and Goal Seek has no answer.
The second is that it respects no constraints. If you push the target high enough, Excel hands back a units figure well past 44, the largest single order anywhere in my sheet. It reports that with the same confidence as a realistic number, and nothing warns you the plan is fiction.
It also works on one cell at a time, so eight reps means eight separate runs.
The third is approximation. Goal Seek iterates toward the target rather than solving it outright, stopping once it lands inside a tolerance set under File > Options > Formulas, where Maximum Iterations and Maximum Change live. On money, the gap is fractions of a cent, but the answer is close rather than exact.
Solver and Scenario Manager cover the gaps, and I still open Goal Seek first
Why the narrow tool wins almost every planning question I have
Solver answers the two-unknown question. It moves several inputs at once, and respects rules you set, so splitting a $30,000 target across four regions while capping each near what it has historically closed is squarely its problem. There is a fuller account of where Solver picks up what Goal Seek drops.
But the cost is assembly. Solver has to be enabled from the add-ins list before it appears on the Data tab, and every run needs an objective, variable cells, and constraints written out. For one input, that is a lot of work.
Scenario Manager sits in the same menu and does something different. It stores named sets of input values and switches between them, so comparing 5%, 6%, and 7.5% commission rates side by side is exactly its job. It solves nothing, though. Every figure in a scenario is one you supplied.
The distinction settles it for me. Scenario Manager answers what happens if… Solver answers what the best mix would be. Goal Seek answers what has to be true, and planning almost always asks the third one. When a second variable shows up, I move to Solver rather than forcing Goal Seek to fake it.
The next thing I want to solve backwards
Anything with a target attached is fair game
Sales commission was the obvious place to start because the numbers were sitting there, but the pattern is broader. Any sheet where one number is fixed and another is negotiable qualifies, which covers most of what I plan.
Freelance rates are next, working out the day rate that clears a monthly income without adding days to the week. Then discounts, finding the percentage that still leaves a margin standing. Then schedules, backing into the pace a deadline actually demands. Excel did not become more capable when I started working this way; rather, it started answering the question I was already asking.
Leigha Schewe
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